Interview with writer Kevin Tumlinson, the Wordslinger

I had the privilege of interviewing writer Kevin Tumlinson, the Wordslinger.  It was interesting indeed.  Here is what he had to say.

1. Who are you?

Some say a man displaced in time, with a hidden agenda that could lead to either humanity's salvation or its worst nightmare. Others say "that guy who talks about being pantsless all the time." I generally say, "Hi, I'm Kevin." Kevin Tumlinson — Wordslinger, Author, Marketing Smartypants. I've written professionally since I was 12 years old, so if I don't know what I'm talking about I've gotten pretty good at faking it. Probably the latter.

2. What inspires you to write?

When I was five years old I wrote a "book" — three pages on notebook paper, front and back. My stepfather loved it, and read it to the family with great fanfare and to high praise. My first taste of being "published" to an appreciative audience! 

I was hooked, and all I ever wanted was to have that feeling again and again.

 I love my audience, and they're the reason I keep coming back to the keyboard every single day. But I love the language, too. I've made a pretty good living with words, working mostly as a copywriter for most of my career. I managed to turn words into dollar signs, and that was a pretty good motivator too. The audience, though — I come back for free, if I have to, because of that group of amazing people who ask (demand!) that I keep writing. 

3. What are your goals?

Now that I'm treating my books as a business, I have strange new goals. Before, it was all about seeing my name on the spines of books lining someone's bookshelf. I still want that, but the timbre of that dream has changed. Now I want to expand my reach by producing a large body of work. I want to have the adjective "prolific" associated with my name. 

Recently I've committed to writing at a level I never thought possible. I write every day, with the goal of eventually churning out a book each month. I think that can be done, and done well. I see other writers doing it, actually, and that's very encouraging. Getting to that level will mean success for me. I feel very deeply that being a prolific fiction writer will eventually allow me to break into the "walled garden" of publishing success, as I've defined it for myself.

4. If you ruled the world, what would you change first?

I would forbid Michael Bay from making any more films that destroy all of my childhood memories. I don't think that's too much to ask. I'm a benevolent dictator. 

Beyond that, I'd implement a reform to education, world-wide, to refocus it on teaching kids how possible everything is. I've known too many adults who had no idea how much they could have done and how much they can still do with their lives. No dream is out of reach — which sounds cliche until you realize that we live in a world where you can now decide to be just about anything, like an author, and if you put in the work and learn a little bit here and there you can make that happen. 

The barriers are down. We can all walk around free now. I'd make knowledge of that fact into something that's as common as breathing for future generations.

That has influenced my fiction a great deal. I write hopeful fiction — stories in which people may struggle, but they recognize the presence of hope. People die in my stories, and people can be wicked and evil there just as in real life — all the same ups and downs and ins and outs apply. But the underlying message in everything I write is hope. It's all about people doing what they do, struggling against whatever challenges they face, with the hope that it will turn out ok.

5. What's the most important thing we should know about you? 

I want to help. 

That sounds kind of trite when I see it written on screen, but it's the absolute truth. I've spent a couple of decades focused on me, on being a success by my own definition. It was only recently, within the past two or three years, that it finally dawned on me that there are other people in the world facing the same sort of struggles I face, chasing the same sort of dreams. And all of those people could use someone to give them a bit of advice, a nudge, some encouragement.

There's a quote by Zig Ziglar that I use as a guidepost for my life now: "You can have everything you want in life if you're willing to help enough other people get what they want.​"

That's who I am now. It's what I do. I help other people, especially indie authors and publishers, as much as I can. I love writing fiction, and I want that audience to grow to unbelievable levels. But in the end, I truly believe the best way to achieve my own goals is to help other people achieve theirs.

If you think about it, that makes a great deal of sense. As I'm learning more about publishing and marketing the work, and making more contacts in the industry while discovering new resources and tools, all on behalf of someone else, I'm able to use all of that for my own work. Plus, hearing someone say, "This would have been a lot tougher without your help" is pretty cool. I could live with that, if it were the only thing I accomplished with my life.

6. How can we find your work?

My books are available with pretty much every online book retailer, for any device you can think of. But the shortcut to finding everything would be to visit my book page at www.kevintumlinson.com/books. I keep that up to day with everything I publish, with links to every format you could want. 

At the moment, I'm actually offering the first book in my "Citadel" series for free. If you go to kevintumlinson.com/freebook and sign up for my mailing list, you can download "Citadel: First Colony" at no charge. All I really ask is that you review it on Amazon! That helps a great deal.

And if you ever need help, advice, or maybe just someone to bounce an idea off of, I'm available on my site and on all the social media greats. Find me at plus.google.com/+kevinTumlinson on Google+, facebook.com/kevin.tumlinson on Facebook, and @kevintumlinson on Twitter.